Memory Hurt by Hormone Secreted in Response to Stress, Study Shows

UC Irvine researchers have come up with an explanation for something many test takers, public speakers and performers already know: Memory can fail under pressure. Neurobiologist James L. McGaugh and his colleagues report in today’s Nature that an elevated level of a stress hormone hinders the ability of rats to find their way back to a hidden target.

McGaugh’s team taught rats to swim to a plastic platform hidden just beneath the water’s surface in a steel tank. Then they gave the rats a small electric shock and tested how well they were able to find the platform after two minutes, 30 minutes and four hours. The rats found it after two minutes and after four hours, but were at least 50% less successful after 30 minutes. The 30-minute trial corresponded to a peak level of the stress hormone corticosterone, which was secreted in response to the electric shock.

*

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II